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I was 16. I was asleep. At first. I continued to pretend I was asleep. I understand now that reaction was fear and weirdly self-preservation. The incident did not last long. I managed to roll myself out of it. I never said a word, not that day nor for a long time afterwards. I was too scared of the consequences; the fall out. I felt guilty. I felt it was my fault. IT WASN’T. There was no counselling, no support, I carried on as if nothing had happened. Lots was happening though, inside me. I was fucking angry. It’s like a ball of fire in your gut. It seeps out at times, the wrong times. It colours everything you do. My confidence was shot to pieces. If you think I’m confident, I’m a better actress than I know. Without counselling an incident like this colours your life forever.

I became bulimic. You stuff food inside yourself to supress the raging emotions. Then vomit it all up – it’s exhausting. I eventually went for counselling for my bulimia, group counselling, it didn’t really help I just learned that other girls were suffering too but we never discussed why.

Many brave faces have been put on. I wanted desperately for someone to protect me. I also wanted someone to beat him up. Basically, you experience a wall of emotions.

Directly after I got married I became quite depressed. (Sorry Noel – but if anyone knows that you do). I was 39 by this point. I was really happy newly-married to Noel, and the depression was so confusing, but this was nothing to do with him, I just couldn’t shake off this particular depression. I went to see a counsellor in Dublin. When I sat in her chair I could feel this ball of anger welling up inside me, I started crying, I could not stop. It was all to do with that incident when I was 16. I was still carrying around this fog, 23 years later, and it felt like yesterday.

Just after moving to Gorey – again a happy move – the fog came again but I got an appointment with our local psychologist. He listened to me at length and suggested I go for counselling sessions here with the Rape Crisis centre. I met a wonderful woman called Imelda. After I explained everything she told me she wanted to check something out and the next week said ‘Alyth, by law, you were raped’. Now you may think I would know this? – as we all know what rape is – but rape can be many things. However, Imelda saying that to me made a real difference. She gave a name to this pathetic incident that had scarred me so badly. The guilt stopped. I believe people call that understanding ‘owning it’ (though this is nothing I wanted to own.) I was told to write a letter to him. I did. You don’t have to send that letter – writing the letter is facing the facts – but I did. He denied it. I am not surprised – who the hell would want to admit to something like this. I was annoyed, but now I am truly over it. I have no dealings with him. I don’t think much of him. I get on with my life. He has to live with it.

I know – with great sadness – I am one of millions.

If you experienced something similar I hope you were able to cope better than I, but if not find a way through it till it is truly over, otherwise it will never leave you. The problem with being a victim is you have to find the strength, the ability to heal even though you did not set this thing in motion. Respect and sex education need to be an open discussion. My thoughts about Lewis at that time was – there was too much religion and not enough reality but that would not be exclusive to Lewis.

What I regret most of all is my confidence being shattered and draggin’ this through my life for so long.

It has not been easy writing this as I am aware that once you post something you are open to any reaction but the objectifying and disrespect of women is far too commonplace to stay silent.

Salt comes in a bewildering number of packages: table, kosher, Maldon, sea and even popcorn. What’s the difference and does it matter? And why use kosher salt? In this article we’ll tell you how these salts are different and how you might use them.

Well, first of all, they are all basically sodium chloride (NaCl) and crystallized in various ways with various numbers of impurities. Salt naturally crystallizes in little cubes, but if you fool around as it is crystallizing you can get slightly differently shaped crystals.

Great. This is a necessary behavior in the face of the election of the most overtly racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti- gender and sexual minority candidate in the history of the modern United States. You know the rhetoric of his campaign was wrong. It was the very worst thing about America and you want to do […]

Do you set goals with excitement and gung-ho attitude that you are going to “crush” your goals, have fantastic energy and momentum at the start, make some great progress, but maybe a few weeks later, you find yourself slowing down, or perhaps even unmotivated?

Why does this happen and more importantly, how can you make sure to see your goals through?

To understand how our brain works, picture an iceberg which will be representative of our brain. The tip of the iceberg that is visible symbolizes our conscious brain, which is only about 10% of our brain. This part of our brain stores both conscious and unconscious core beliefs. Core beliefs are the files we have that open up and have us react to situations in a certain way because of what we believe, which are formed unconsciously in childhood. These beliefs can serve us or not serve us today…

It’s not a cheerful subject but cancer is something we hear about more and more. I don’t think we should shy away from it. Both my parents have had cancer. My Mum when she was 36, she is now 71, and my Dad a few years ago. Cancer has often been spoken of in our house. My parents survived, my Auntie Joan did not.

I was trawling through a local bookshop the other day, something I love to do, and I came across a book called ‘What you can do to prevent cancer’ by John McKenna he is ‘a scientist, a retired medical doctor who has been practising natural medicine for 25 years’.

Because of my parents experiences I thought I knew a good bit about what cancer is and how it ‘works’ well it turns out I need to correct some of the ideas I have and in doing so could help myself strengthen my own immune system to fight against it. It is no guarantee but now I am in my mid 40’s cancer is something I think about more regularly. I’d also like to try to help my husband stay cancer free too. So, I am reading this book and would like to pass on some things I have learned.

It’s a western disease – African and other non westernised countires have lower forms of cancer: cancers related to chronic infections eg hepatitus.

It used to be an illness of the young and elderly as their immune systems being underdeveloped or in decline.

We develop cancer cells everyday it is a normal process, dealt with by our immune system, it is when this system goes awry problems occur.

A great many cancers are ‘exogenous’ that is ‘external so can be prevented’

‘Genes are only a small part of the picture’lifestyle and enviroment are a bigger factor and it is the ‘interaction between our genes and enviroment that determines’ whether our genes will be triggered.

‘Epigenomes are the receptors in DNA that are a major factor in determining whether cancer will develop’

‘The single major enviromental influence on epigenome is diet’

During the 2nd world war food was scarce so agricultural chemicals were developed to boost crops, these nirtogen fertilisers weakened plants making them ‘susceptible to infection’ so pesticides were developed to ‘strenghten’ them. These chemical are still in our enviroment.

Agricultural chemicals have been around since 1949 younger farmers don’t necessarily know how to farm without them.

Antibiotics are oversubscribed which weakens the immune system.

We should not eat ANY processed foods.

We should not eat anything anything labled low fat as this = high sugar.

Perfumes and body products are still not properly regulated they, like plastic, contain hormones disruptors.

My husband and i live in the countryside and love where we live. We work hard for this to be our home. We are surrounded by fields and nature – agricultural fields. As we are far from the main road we have a well as our water source and the water runs off the hills surrounding us. Hills and fields that are sprayed at various times of the year. The first thing we are having done is have our water tested. I am not panicing but I would like to be better informed.

There’s more to the Outer Hebrides than the guidebooks would have you believe – but don’t just take my word for it. Visit these islands for yourself, and take this list of essential travel experiences with you! See the sunset (or the Northern Lights) at the Callanish Stones. The Callanish Stones are older than Stonehenge, and…

On Saturday I travelled from Lewis back to Glasgow. I knew it was going to be hard leaving, as I had been sensing this on the island all week.

I was amongst friends in Ullapool the previous weekend at Feis Rois, friends I hadn’t seen for years and shared their music and songs and felt part of ‘it’, part of the ‘scene’. I felt again what I once used to feel in Scotland.

After Ullapool I traveled the ferry journey home to Lewis and hung out with my parents. Mum and I went to the opening of a new art exhibition at the new museum in Stornoway. The museum is now housed in a very tasteful contemporary extension of the Lewis Castle. The event was also the launch of a book of poetry – Maritime by Ian Stephen – so there was a reading with music too. The Castle has been returned to its former glory, it’s being put to good use, as it should be. It stands in the middle of the Castle grounds overlooking the town and harbour, visitors will see it first as they approach from the sea.

We went for lunch one day in Borve so I sat in the back of the car, as I used to as a child, and watched the moor roll by admiring its emptiness. I listened to my parents discuss local politics, the community wind farm and the St Kilda centre, which is only in its planning stages, and I felt their sense of connection to where they are from, that they love where they live and that they want to do what they can to make it as good a place to live as possible. They have always been involved and active within the community and it makes me so proud and full of love. They care not just for themselves but for the community as a whole. They are not alone. This is what I knew would be hard to leave. The land, the sea, the weather and the work that comes from these has such an immediate effect on the people – to this day – it is all still so closely entwined. Out of that comes the music, language, poetry, stories and songs. All this is what my heart ached for as we taxi’d along the runway and the tears rolled down my cheeks.